Short-Term Exposure to Ambient Particulate Elements and Epigenome-Wide DNA Methylation in Older Men: The Normative Aging Study

Background: Current research suggests that short-term exposure to ambient particulate matter is associated with global and gene-specific DNA methylation (DNAm), but little is known regarding the changes in epigenome-wide caused by particulate elements (PEs). Additionally, the potential pathways remain unknown.Objective: We evaluated whether short-term exposure to ambient PEs affects DNAm in epigenome-wide and identified potential biological pathways.Method: We collected whole blood samples from the Normative Aging Study (1999-2013) and measured epigenome-wide DNAm with the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. Ambient PEs were measured daily at a fixed monitoring station and 7 different moving averages (from 1-day to 7-day) were considered. Linear models were used to estimate the associations between 14 elements and DNAm measured in baseline (N=774), adjusting for fine particle mass, cell type, batch effects, age, body mass index, smoking, etc. Pathway analysis was also performed to explore ...